Hi, I just purchased the game over on Steam, and I don't have much playtime yet. A few hours a most.

One thing I'm confused about , is how to judge / determine if a weapon is good, and what would be an upgrade.

I'm mainly using the Sapphire Yacht. But been thinking of using Wolfen-Class Gunship too.

I've been following the Beginner's guide found over on Steam, in the guides section. And it recommends for that ship, that I immediately get either a AK15 or DK10.

I've found both these weapons. And even looking at them both, I can't tell which one is better, or why. It's confusing. Or what to upgrade too BEYOND that?

Any tips on how to evaluate weapons.. I'd really wish there were specific ship guides around, to show how one should progress in a given ship. start with X weapon, upgrade to X weapon, right up to end game. Would be nice.

Anyway any help you can offer, would be great..Especially for Sapphire Yacht.. But maybe also the Wolfen gunship too.

The best upgrade path will depend on the player's style and what else spawns in the game. For example, if a cannon accelerator spawns and I'm not playing with any mods enabled, I try to stick with only kinetic weapons for as long as I can.

I tend to prefer small, fast ships and rely on a missile launcher for the bulk of the ship's firepower. Due to that style, I tend to look for main weapons that can shoot down small ships quickly (omnidirectional) or create a cone of fire that spreads out and hits lots of small ships at the same time (spread or fragmenting weapons). That way, I don't have to waste missiles on small fights.

When deciding whether to upgrade, I look at the level number of the weapon first. Level 3 weapons are typically better than level 2, and level 4 weapons are better than level 3. The drawback to higher-level weapons is that they use more reactor power. I normally won't upgrade to a weapon that consumes more than a third of my current reactor's power output. If a reactor overloads, it sometimes disables the ship's shield at the worst time.

My reliance on missiles means that I can often wait on a weapon upgrade until I can loot something good or buy it at a discount at a Commonwealth fortress. Urak gunships, for example, have a pretty powerful level 3 kinetic weapon, so I may hold off on spending money so that I can loot one of those for free.

If I were playing without a missile launcher, I'd try to install two weapons: an omnidirectional weapon to shoot at small, fast ships and a howitzer to take down capital ships and stations. Again, reactor power would be an important consideration, as a weapon that causes reactor overloads is worse than useless.

What I wrote above reflects personal preferences based on the way I play. Hopefully, other people will comment in order to round out the discussion!

Stable and fast ship is my playstyle, Sapphire.
No matter what weapon I get, I always equip it if they are best for me. Rather than powerful Kinetic, I intend to equip fast and reliable Laser, especially Turbolaser at early equiment. And for station and capital ship, I never using Howitzer, but use Launcher instead.
To choose weapon that best for your ship, you should check this following weapon specification:
-Power consumption
-Fire rate
-Damage type
-Level
-General Damage
-Ability
But like Gunship256 said, it's based by your playstyle.
No matter what weapon you have, if you can handle it, use it!

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Something to keep in mind is that, at present, small, fast ships can still mount the same heavy weaponry that larger gunships can. Things like turreted weaponry and howitzers become a lot more powerful when you can dodge fire and outrun most enemy ships, so they're what I usually use with the Wolfen.

gunship256 wrote:
If I were playing without a missile launcher, I'd try to install two weapons: an omnidirectional weapon to shoot at small, fast ships and a howitzer to take down capital ships and stations. Again, reactor power would be an important consideration, as a weapon that causes reactor overloads is worse than useless.

I've heard others mention the Howitzer. I have not seen it yet. I'm a bit confused at what it is.. Is the Howitzer a weapon for the weapon slots? A rocket launcher? Or a missle type for a specific launcher?

I'm currently in the 2nd system now and have been to about 4 or 5 places that sells weapons, and have not seen the words "Howitzer" in anything being sold yet.

Each weapon has its use in particular situations, but you'll want at least one with WMD 5 or higher as stations become hard to kill without one. The AK15 and NAMI missile launcher are good WMD weapons that you can find early on.

Weapons can be put in two groups. There is one group for energy weapons, including laser, particle, ion, positron damage. The other group includes matter-based weapons that deal kinetic, blast, thermo and plasma damage. Most enemies have armor that is strong against one group but weak against the other group, so you'll eventually want at least one energy weapon and one matter-based weapon.

Omnidirectional and tracking weapons hit their target more often. This is really good when fighting weak ships or when you're near friendlies.

A lot of other details about a weapon aren't given in its description, such as its projectile speed.

Howitzers are weapons, installed in weapon slots. They are loved because they are long-ranged, have a high WMD and don't need ammo. You may find some a few systems later.

WMD stands for, you guessed it, Weapon of Mass Destruction. In Transcendence this means it does a percentage of 'structural damage'. Some enemies and most stations require a WMD weapon to effectively bring down. Smaller enemy ships tend to die regardless of a weapons WMD factor.

Zanatar wrote:I'm currently in the 2nd system now and have been to about 4 or 5 places that sells weapons, and have not seen the words "Howitzer" in anything being sold yet.

In this game, any weapon with a long range and does significant WMD damage is howitzer-like enough to be used to kill capital ships and stations.

In the early game, lasers can actually be used as howitzers because of their relatively long range. If you line a laser cannon up just right and shoot for a long time, you can kill stations from far away, and most stations don't have weapons with enough range to shoot back. Early-game stations are weak enough that even non-WMD weapons like laser cannons will work if you're willing to shoot for long enough.

Later on the in game, you'll see the Mark I and Mark III howitzers, which are levels 5 and 6, respectively. These serve the same purpose: line them up carefully and shoot at stations from a distance until they die.

In general, howitzers are expensive, their recoil makes them hard to aim, and they shoot so slowly that they're not very useful for killing small ships. I normally go for a missile launcher instead.

WMD add extra damage against multihull.
Example:
If you find Multihull station or ship, and you use non WMD weapon, you only find that will damage target about 1%. While WMD weapon will damage around 10% or higher.

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WMD label that appears on weapons is one-tenth of the percentage, with fractions dropped.

WMD is important throughout much of the game, especially later on.

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WMD label that appears on weapons is one-tenth of the percentage, with fractions dropped.

WMD is important throughout much of the game, especially later on.

It's worth noting that this is for the unstable version (1.7 Alpha 1a). The stable version on the website (and the only version on Steam) has a more vicious curve, with WMD0 weapons doing one point of damage per hit. This was unbalanced, and got amended for 1.7.

Howitzers start turning up in vanilla at around level 4 or 5. The first "howitzer-like" weapon is the AK505 Ballista (level 4).....but the first weapon that's definitely a howitzer is the helpfully-named Mark I howitzer (which isn't very good), at level 5. Unless you're a good shot, they're not suited to combat against agile, fast enemies....or close range combat in general. But at range they can hammer anything.

Notably good howitzers are:

-AK505 Ballista
-Mark III howitzer
-Dual Mark III howitzer (crafted weapon, very powerful, very expensive, and insanely powerful until it becomes obsolete)
-Nandao bolt cannon
-Mark V Howitzer
-Fusionfire howitzer
-Ares Plasma Archcannon (in 1.6, this gun is absurdly trollish but immensely powerful. In 1.7 it's far less of a one-hit-kill wonder, but also doesn't have the chance to do virtually no damage with a direct hit like the old one. It also looks prettier and knocks out more devices on enemy ships.)

Generally for people who have trouble aiming I'd suggest a light omnidirectional weapon (basically a turreted weapon) for shooting most ships, and a missile launcher with heavy tracking missiles (eg. Km500 or XM900) for dealing with heavy targets. This trades off damage potential for reliability. Ultimately the best guns don't have swivel or omni capability, but omni weapons are a lot easier to use.

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Shrike wrote:Generally for people who have trouble aiming I'd suggest a light omnidirectional weapon (basically a turreted weapon) for shooting most ships, and a missile launcher with heavy tracking missiles (eg. Km500 or XM900) for dealing with heavy targets. This trades off damage potential for reliability. Ultimately the best guns don't have swivel or omni capability, but omni weapons are a lot easier to use.

A missile launcher is also a lot cheaper to use than a howitzer. I normally loot so many level 2 Longbow missiles that I can't fire them all, so I sell them off instead. If they're fired from a distance and used like howitzers, they're comparable to the level 5 Mark I howitzer, but Longbows show up much earlier in the game and cost almost nothing to use.

If you can get closer to the target, level 3 Brute missiles are pretty devastating. A few of those will take out any early-game station easily.

Level 3 Stilettos are more powerful than Longbows, and they also track. If I do all the Korolov missions, I rarely have to buy Stilettos, since I can loot them from Charon frigates I've killed.